Nelly Bekus

I work on the history of criminalisation of the destruction of cultural heritage in the twentieth century; I am interested in failed attempts to codify the concept of cultural genocide after the Second World War and its impact on the development of international protection of cultural heritage. My recent chapter on the protection of culture in the post-World War 2 order explores the different perspectives on the criminalisation of the destruction of culture by scrutinising the drafting process of various international documents with a particular focus on three acts of international law-making in terms of safeguarding culture: the Nuremberg trials, the negotiation of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention and the drafting of the UNESCO 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.